FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

 Let this wash that piece of shit job out of your mind.
•   Another week, another wingnut blubbering he's been deplatformed. No, I'm not talking about Milo Yabbadabbado, Alex Jones, Laura Loomer and the rest of those clowns kicked off Facebook -- I mean former Federal Reserve Board nominee Stephen Moore, who takes to the Wall Street Journal to cry "the left and the media instantly launched a relentless campaign against me. Last week a reporter who has covered the Fed for 30 years told me he’d never seen anything like it." And that reporter's name was Trump's Friend Jim. Moore says he was prepared to defend his belief that "economic growth does not cause inflation," a libertarian article of faith like trickle-down, but now he'll never get the chance because the big bad media "called [me] an adulterer, a misogynist, a tax cheat, a deadbeat dad, antigay and mentally unfit."

Well, Stevie baby, truth is an absolute defense:

Court records in Virginia obtained by the Guardian show Moore, 59, was reprimanded by a judge in November 2012 for failing to pay Allison Moore more than $300,000 in spousal support, child support and money owed under their divorce settlement. 

Moore continued failing to pay, according to the court filings, prompting the judge to order the sale of his house to satisfy the debt in 2013. But this process was halted by his ex-wife after Moore paid her about two-thirds of what he owed, the filings say... 

The 2010 divorce filing from Moore’s wife said he had destroyed their marriage through adultery, after creating two accounts on the dating website Match.com and beginning an affair with a woman early in 2010. 

Moore is said to have discussed the affair “openly and tastelessly” with his then wife, and to have said at one point: “I have two women, and what’s really bad is when they fight over you.” He also left evidence of the relationship around the home, the filing said... 

The Guardian revealed this week that Moore owes the US government $75,000 according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Moore disputes the government’s claim and blames confusion over tax deductions relating to his child support and alimony payments...

....which he didn't pay. As for anti-LGBT remarks, Moore's only had a few of those ("This is a state where the legislature recently approved a measure to give 'equal rights' to transvestites"); what he really hates is women, and the idea they have equal rights with men. He's also big on the ascendant David French conservative theory that women should be paid less so men can do better ("If men aren’t the breadwinners, will women regard them as economically expendable?").

The punch line is classic conservative victimology: After snarling about the "gutter" press unfairly reporting on a public figure nominated to a powerful government position, the mud-spattered Moore bravely draws himself up and proclaims:

I realize now that I should have known better. Someone as outspoken as I am, and with a paper trail two miles long, is bound to be a target in today’s political environment. I should have warned the president about skeletons in my closet.

"In hindsight I should have warned Trump that I was a scumbag" is just intrinscially funny, but it gets better:

Still, some good has come of all this. Because of all this attention, unwelcome as it was, my mantra that growth doesn’t cause inflation seems to be taking hold.

If my downfall yet allows the economy to be destroyed, I'll think the sacrifice well worth it, like Billy Mitchell! I must say, I don't know him well enough to say whether he believes this bullshit, but if he doesn't he has my admiration and I can't imagine why Trump cut him loose.

•   Maybe it's just me but I seem to be seeing a lot of tub-thumping for capitalism these days -- like we can't just take it for granted that it's good anymore, the folks who usually spend their time telling us that abortion is murder and immigrants are scum have to be enlisted to cheerlead. At National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru looks at dire poll results for our Poor Get Poorer and So Do The Middle-Class economy and smells hope:

When Americans answer polls, they express less and less confidence in free-market capitalism — even as they express more and more satisfaction about economic conditions. 

Perhaps people are evaluating these questions against different time horizons. They may, that is, think that the economy is performing well at the moment but has become less capable of delivering broad-based prosperity over the course of a generation. If today’s conditions persist long enough, then, the reputation of capitalism may recover.

To put it another way: the saps are catching on, but they don't know how bad it is, so we can bamboozle them back -- Ponnuru's idea is to tell them to appreciate their "non-wage benefits" like their health plans (for those who have them, that is, which under Trump is seven million less than it used to be and going down; and of course the plans are getting shittier), and that "a common method of adjusting for inflation... overdoes it," so everything isn't getting too expensive like you think, you're deluded by socialism! Ponnuru's solution for that: "reform of our monetary regime" (get Stephen Moore in there!) and deregulation. Can I get an Amen!

And at the Wall Street Journal Peggy Noonan tells us not to worry, the real Republicans who've been subjugating themselves to Donald Trump will soon rise again, just you wait, and this time "the federal government will not become smaller or less expensive in our lifetimes" -- but that money will not be spent to give you moochers health care or guaranteed incomes, no sir, but to create make-work projects for "the lost boys of the working and middle classes." Can't you just imagine President Pence bringing back the WPA, only with more moral scolding? (Of course "lost boys" will wind up in camps with refugees, to die by neglect or be diddled by pastors and priests.) Also "resolving the mental-health crisis" i.e. putting crazy people in nuthouses where we don't have to look at them. But above all we must have faith in "the system that yielded all our wealth and allowed us to be generous with the world and with ourselves -- free-market capitalism. Only the GOP can do this, because Republicans genuinely love economic freedom." That's a refreshing change of message that's bound to lead to invigorating changes in American life, huh?

If we can't elect Warren or Sanders I expect the Buttigieg/J.D. Vance ticket to lose 45 states and Trump to declare capitalism the state religion and "I got mine, don't worry about yours" the motto on our coinage.